In the process of fabricating semiconductor laser diodes, semiconductor laser chips are coated on opposing facets to provide mirrored surfaces, or partially mirrored surfaces, that reflect substantially all or a portion of the light created within the chip when the diode is powered and operating. The coating process is carried out in a high-vacuum deposition chamber. Strips of semiconductor laser chips, called bars, are held in a fixture for deposition of optical coating material or materials on facets of the bars. Existing fixtures do not hold the bars in a relatively small or compact area with the result that the deposition of coating materials is not uniform on all of the bars processed simultaneously. Furthermore, the throughput capacity has been limited in that each fixture could only support a few bars.
What is needed is a method and fixture for laser bar facet coating that compactly holds laser bars for deposition of optical coating material, and results in a more uniform coating of the material on the bar facets. A fixture that also provides increased capacity would result in a more economical process due to an increased number of bars being coated using the same amount of optical coating material in each batch of the process.